Somaliland Sovereignty Predates the Creation of Somali Republic and its Territorial Integrity.

What if the most repeated claims about Somaliland are wrong? What if the idea that its separation is a recent rebellion, that its people were always committed to pan-Somali unity, or that Israel’s move represents a sudden colonial intrusion collapses under even minimal historical scrutiny? And what if the real scandal is not Israel’s recognition of Somaliland, but how thoroughly the international system has ignored facts it once openly acknowledged?

Just a day after Christmas, on 26 December, a video call landed on the Somaliland president’s iPhone. On the other end was Benjamin Netanyahu, informing him of a decision that would detonate diplomatic outrage across Africa, the Middle East and the United Nations. Nothing about this moment was spontaneous. It was the endpoint of a long, calculated and largely clandestine process in which symbolism mattered far less than geography, intelligence and hard power.

To understand why this recognition matters, one has to begin with an inconvenient historical truth: Somaliland is not a breakaway region invented in 1991. It is a former British protectorate that became an independent state in June 1960, was recognized by more than thirty countries, and entered a voluntary union with the former Italian Somalia five days later. That union was political rather than organic, rushed rather than deliberative, and never subjected to a referendum in Somaliland itself. When it collapsed three decades later amid mass violence, Somaliland did not secede from a functioning state; it withdrew from a failed one and reclaimed a sovereignty it had already possessed.

This alone sits uncomfortably with the joint statement issued by Arab, Islamic and African states condemning Israel’s move as a violation of international law and an unprecedented assault on territorial integrity. The statement speaks as though Somaliland were a newly invented “region”, yet omits the fact that its statehood predates the Somali Republic itself. It invokes the sanctity of borders while ignoring that Somaliland has consistently defended colonial-era boundaries, whereas the Somali state openly rejected them through the doctrine of Greater Somalia. It warns of dangerous precedents while overlooking the dozens of cases in which self-determination has been selectively endorsed or denied depending on geopolitical convenience.

Declassified intelligence from the period before independence exposes how fragile the nationalist narrative always was. A 1948 CIA assessment of political organizations in British Somaliland noted that none were “purely political in character” and that they largely pursued “individual tribal or regional interests”. It estimated that only three or four per cent of the population belonged to any political party. Most explosively, it stated that the Somali Youth League, later mythologized as the voice of all Somalis, “does not have an appeal for the residents of British Somaliland”. This was not the verdict of a hostile power seeking to undermine unity, but an internal intelligence assessment written decades before Somaliland’s later rupture with Mogadishu.

The same document described early Somali nationalism as explicitly pan-Somali and dismissive of inherited borders, committed to uniting “all the inhabitants of the Somali countries”. That ideology would later become state doctrine in Mogadishu. Somaliland’s subsequent rejection of it was not a betrayal of some shared national soul; it was a continuation of a political culture that had always been cautious, localized and sceptical of ideological centralism. In this sense, Somaliland’s post-1991 governance — built around clan conferences, negotiated consent and decentralization — looks less like an anomaly and more like a return to form.

Israel’s role enters this story not as a sudden act of provocation, but as a long-term strategic calculation shaped by geography and threat perception. Somalia as a unified state never had meaningful relations with Israel. From the 1960s onward it aligned itself with pan-Arab causes, framed Israel as an imperial enemy, and became one of its most hostile critics in international forums. Somaliland, by contrast, was recognized by Israel in 1960 and quietly revisited that history after restoring its independence in 1991.

What followed, according to multiple Israeli and regional media reports, was years of discreet engagement managed largely outside formal diplomatic channels. Mossad is reported to have cultivated relationships with Somaliland’s leadership, laying political and security groundwork well before any public recognition. Israeli officials have openly thanked the agency’s leadership for its role. Key Somaliland leaders are said to have made several secret visits to Israel in 2025, meeting senior political, defense and intelligence figures. None of this was advertised, because recognition politics in Africa and the Arab world remain unforgiving.

The strategic logic is blunt. Somaliland sits on the Gulf of Aden, overlooking the Bab el-Mandeb strait through which a significant share of global trade passes. It lies within a few hundred kilometers of Houthi controled territory in Yemen, whose missiles and drones have reshaped security calculations across the Red Sea. From Berbera, Israel and its partners can monitor maritime traffic, detect launches, and project power at distances that radically alter response times. Israeli commentators have described the relationship as a force multiplier against the Houthis. Western security planners see similar advantages.

This also explains why the United Arab Emirates looms so large in the background. Long before Israel’s recognition, Abu Dhabi invested heavily in Berbera’s port and airport, reportedly turning them into advanced logistical and military facilities. The UAE’s absence from the joint condemnation statement was therefore less a mystery than a confirmation. Somaliland fits neatly into a wider Emirati strategy of controlling ports, trade routes and maritime choke-points from the Red Sea to the Horn of Africa, often operating beyond the authority of weak central governments.

China, too, factors into the equation. Its naval base in Djibouti and expanding presence along African trade routes have unsettled Western planners. Somaliland offers an alternative foothold in a region where influence is increasingly contested. From this perspective, Israel’s move is not only about countering the Houthis or extending the Abraham Accords, but about anchoring itself and its allies in a rapidly militarizing maritime corridor.

It is here that the most incendiary allegations emerge, particularly claims that Somaliland was discussed as a potential destination for Palestinians displaced from Gaza. These reports, widely circulated but officially denied, have inflamed regional reactions and colored interpretations of Israel’s motives. Whether such plans were speculative, exploratory or entirely fictitious, their very plausibility in public discourse speaks to how little Somaliland is treated as a political community in its own right, and how readily it is imagined as empty strategic space.

The backlash has been swift and severe. Fourteen UN Security Council members condemned Israel’s recognition; the African Union rejected it outright. Turkey warned of a strategy to fragment Islamic states. Somalia framed the move as an existential threat. Yet much of this outrage rests on selective memory. Somaliland is condemned for claiming self-determination, while states that suppress separatist movements within their own borders present themselves as guardians of international law. Israel is accused of expansionism, while Somalia’s own pursuit of Greater Somalia is quietly erased from the record.

None of this absolves Israel of opportunism, nor Somaliland of hard-nosed calculation. This was not an act of idealism. It was a transaction shaped by intelligence cooperation, shared threat perceptions and the cold logic of geography. It will intensify rivalries in the Horn of Africa, sharpen competition in the Red Sea, and test already fragile regional orders. It may also, paradoxically, force a long-overdue reckoning with Somaliland’s unresolved status.

The question now is whether the international community can continue to deny a political reality that intelligence agencies documented decades ago, that dozens of states once acknowledged, and that more than 39 years of effective self-rule have only reinforced. In the coming years, as the Horn of Africa becomes an ever more critical arena of global competition, that denial may prove more destabilizing than recognition itself.

by Nilantha Ilangamuwa is a founding editor of the Sri Lanka Guardian